1. Popera CosmicPhiladelphie Story
On an emotional level, I can identify with it because of my own aspirations of wanting to make music. It’s passionate and it’s an earworm. I posted it on Twitter and Andy Votel, who’s a DJ in Manchester and runs Finders Keepers, and is one of those crate pickers who’s always looking for those lost gems, was like, "Oh my God, Anton! Do you know anyone who’s got this?" and it turns out I do know someone who’s got a copy in Iceland, but they only made a few hundred copies of this record and it went nowhere.
On another level, just bringing this up, I can relate to it because every song I used to write – even if I thought it was great but it wasn’t executed well – people always thought they were amazing and I think about all the copies of the NME and all the stuff they used to rave about that was so important that it had to be in your face, and that means nothing. And me not even being able to get into the papers about something, I could just identify with this guy because, to me, he’s like a master – a master at work. And it’s like a prog-orchestral thing in a way that I can understand. Like, something like King Crimson is a little bit too much and this is obviously coming from the same kind of place except without the jazz-fusion, and I was just like, "Wow!"
And also, I like psychedelia that isn’t limited to just paisley shirts and fuzz boxes. There’s this whole other side of it to me, which is mind-expanding and that’s where the whole rock orchestra thing comes in. I love music that allows you the space to interact with it.
